Trigger Warning: What follows are speculations about the implicit philosophies and psychologies underpinning victim blaming. Years ago I read an article by a rape survivor who talked about how after she was raped she would obsess over what she should have done differently to prevent the attack. By beating herself up over what was done [Read More...]

From many sources I have heard that philosopher Rebecca Goldstein’s lecture on the “will to matter”, below, was the highlight: Your Thoughts? If you enjoy reading my philosophical blog posts, consider taking one of my online philosophy classes! I earned my PhD and taught 93 university classes before I went into business for myself. My online classes [Read More...]

Ashely F. Miller of the blog Ashley F. Miller hosted her inaugural episode of The Ashley F. Miller Show and Mavaddat Javid and I were her guests. First we speculated about the prospects for this week’s Supreme Court rulings on Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act. Then we talked about themes brought up in [Read More...]

As predominantly pro-social animals, humans are quite often conflict averse. And innumerable forms of social pressure, all the way from authoritarian patriarchy to liberal multiculturalism, encourage people to be as polite as possible as the standard default. This is why letting loose and offending people can feel so incredibly liberating at times. Insofar as our [Read More...]

In this post I explore some of the ways that our beliefs, values, commitments, behaviors, etc. constitute ourselves and how our commitments to various ideas, institutions and practices, etc. also contribute fundamentally to our identity. In light of this, I explore the moral difficulties that potentially arise when we intellectually challenge these things. [Read more...]

Sometimes we hurt others without intending to do so. Often in these cases, we typically feel it a matter of paramount importance to clarify our intentions and demonstrate that they were not malicious, and that the harm our actions did was accidental. This makes sense and is legitimate in that whether we are perceived as [Read More...]